It has already been ascertained in direct communication with the representatives of the Ministry of Interior that the MoI is not behind the mounting of these cameras, and the investigation against the Ministry has been launched practically only to obtain a formal confirmation of the said fact.
The investigation against the Belgrade City Administration should eliminate dilemmas regarding the controversial statements by representatives of the City Administration that have appeared in the media. The media have published the statement of the Secretary of the Emergency Situations Secretariat, that the identity of the person who has mounted the cameras is unknown to the City Administration, but also the statement of the city manager pointing towards the conclusion that the City is actually mounting them, and that it intends to mount even more cameras.
It is necessary to obtain answers to several open questions in the investigation, especially considering that the imprecise and contradictory provisions of several laws provide the local government with the discretionary right to set up such a robust video surveillance system, such as:
- the legal basis and the purpose of personal data processing performed by the said cameras;
- when and in what way has the said video surveillance system been set up;
- what personal data are collected, or what data processing operations are being undertaken;
- how long are the stored recordings kept;
- what persons are entitled to access the said data and what kind of access rights do they have;
- what organizational, staff and technical actions have been undertaken to protect data from potential misuse, destruction, loss, unauthorized access, unauthorized changes, disclosure and any other data misuse;
- whether records on the processing of said personal data within the video surveillance system and some other records have been established, in accordance with the provisions of Article 48(1) of LPDP.
As usual, the Commissioner will inform the public about the results of the investigation and the actions that will be taken in that regard.
